


telling secrets

by starkly



Series: you don't have to do this alone [13]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2019-03-07 01:35:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13423920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkly/pseuds/starkly
Summary: “They’re just kids, Pepper,” Tony says with a laugh, “not animals.”When it comes to some kids, Pepper would beg to differ. But this is Rhodey’s nieces they’re talking about, the older one Pepper had met briefly before, so how bad could they be?





	telling secrets

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for NaNoWriMo 2017 and posted at [dailyironfamily](http://dailyironfamily.tumblr.com/post/167473963000/day-13-kidfic) on tumblr. This fic was proofread before being posted here but is otherwise unchanged.
> 
> Day thirteen: kid fic. Set post-IM3, with a younger MCU-ized version of Lila Rhodes and a younger sister for her I totally made up.

“You don’t have to stick around,” Tony murmurs while they’re waiting by the elevator. “Rhodey and I got this.”

Pepper shakes her head, taking Tony’s hand in hers and giving it a squeeze. “It’s fine. I can’t just run for it.” No matter how much she kind of wants to.

“They’re just kids, Pepper,” Tony says with a laugh, “not animals.”

When it comes to some kids, Pepper would beg to differ. But this is Rhodey’s nieces they’re talking about, the older one Pepper had met briefly before, so how bad could they be? She just has to keep an eye on everyone, and honestly she’s more worried about Tony and Rhodey. They go kind of overboard whenever Lila’s around.

The elevator dings softly and the doors slide open to reveal two young girls. The older one, Lila, has a backpack slung over her shoulder. The younger one, Robin, lets out a gleeful yelp and runs out of the elevator, dragging her own backpack on the ground behind her.

“Uncle Jim, Uncle Jim!” She catches Rhodey around the knees in a hug, and Rhodey laughs and bends down to scoop her up.

“Hey, little bird! You’ve gotten so big,” he says, squeezing tight.

Lila exits the elevator at a more sedate space, looking around the tower in interest. “Hey, Uncle Tony.”

“Lila,” he responds with a casual nod, then grins and lifts his hand for a fist bump. Lila rolls her eyes but taps her knuckles against his.

“Uncle Tony!” Robin shouts, wriggling out of Rhodey’s grip so she can give Tony a hug too. Pepper watches him squat down and give the five year old a hug like it’s the best thing in the world.

“You’re Pepper, right?” Lila asks, turning her attention at last to Pepper, who’s standing there trying to look welcoming and accommodating and not sure she’s achieving either. “Stark’s CEO?”

“The very same,” Pepper says with a soft laugh, holding out her hand for a handshake. “We’re glad to have you and your sister over, Lila. Make yourselves at home.”

“Cool.” Lila drops her hand, hitching her backpack higher up her shoulder and walking further into the room. “Uncle Jim, where’s that lab you were talking about?”

“Maybe not that much at home,” Rhodey says, but Tony perks up, talking over him.

“Oh, you’re going to be so impressed,” he says, taking Robin’s backpack from her and handing it to Pepper. “Rob, you wanna come see too?”

“Nope, robots are boring,” Robin says, following her backpack over to Pepper. Pepper smiles nervously at her.

“Are you sure she’s related to you,” Tony mutters to Rhodey. Louder, he says, “Are you going to behave for Aunt Pepper?”

“What―” Pepper starts, overshadowed by Robin shouting,

“I will!” She grabs one end of her backpack, pulling it and Pepper over to the sitting area in the middle of the room. “C’mon, I brought coloring books.”

“Just for a little bit, Pep,” Tony says, giving her a pleading look. Rhodey doesn’t look like he’s going to swoop in to her defense either, so she sighs and nods.

“Try not to hurt anyone,” she tells the three of them, already being herded to the couch by Robin.

“They’ll be good,” Robin promises her, setting her bag on the couch and opening it. “Lila’s smart.”

“The boys are smart too, that’s why I worry.” Pepper sits down, looking at the array of coloring books Robin spreads out on the table, and smiles when she sees one with the Avengers on the cover.

“You want that one?” Robin asks, sliding it over to her. “Uncle Tony got it for me.”

“Of course he did.” She laughs and takes the book, flipping through it until she stops on a page with drawings of the Iron Man and War Machine armors. “Oh look, cute.”

Robin puts a big box of crayons on the table, and Pepper kicks off her high heels and slides off the couch onto the floor so she’s at a better height to work. She spends some time picking out the best shades of red and gold, and starts coloring in Iron Man. Across from her, Robin opens up a Hot Wheels book and starts coloring a picture of a convertible. Maybe she’s more like her uncles than they thought.

They color their respective pictures in silence for a bit, until Robin pipes up,

“Are you and Uncle Tony married?”

Pepper laughs, surprised. “No, we’re not.”

“But you like him?”

She nods. “I like him very much.”

Robin taps her chin thoughtfully with her crayon. “Are you and Uncle Jim married?”

That gets Pepper to look up from her coloring, crayon poised over the page. “No, we’re not either. Why do you ask?”

“Uncle Tony and Uncle Jim talk about you the same way. Can you keep a secret?” Pepper nods, and Robin leans in so she can share this important secret. “I think Uncle Jim likes you too.”

Pepper bites her lip to keep from laughing out loud. “Does he? Well that’s good, because I like Jim too.”

Robin shakes her head, like Pepper clearly doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation. “No, I mean like-likes you.”

“Can  _you_  keep a secret?” she asks Robin, who nods seriously in response. “I like-like Tony  _and_  Jim.”

Robin seems to ponder this a minute. “Is that allowed?”

“It is allowed, if you ask first.”

This is apparently all the confirmation Robin needs to settle whatever inquiries she had planned, because she nods again and goes back to coloring her Hot Wheels. Pepper lets out a little sigh of relief and does the same, continuing to work on her Iron Man and War Machine picture. By the time Tony, Rhodey, and Lila come back up from the workshop, Pepper’s colored pictures of the whole team.

“There you are,” she says, standing up to stretch. One of her legs has fallen asleep, and she leans awkwardly against the couch as she loosens it out. “Did you all have fun?”

“Uncle Tony set some stuff on fire!” Lila exclaims, bouncing over to the couch and hopping onto it, peering over Robin’s head to look at her art.

“Oh really?” Pepper frowns at him, but he just shrugs.

“It wasn’t anything important,” he says. “Did you and Pepper have fun, Robin?”

“I colored Hot Wheels,” she answers, showing him her current picture. “Lila, Miss Pepper is going to marry Uncle Tony  _and_  Uncle Jim.”

“I did  _not_  say that,” Pepper says hastily as both Tony and Rhodey look at her. “And  _you_  were supposed to keep a secret.”

Robin just smiles widely at all of them.

“She’s five, Pepper, what kind of secrets are you telling her,” Tony says, frowning.

“It’s okay,” Lila interrupts before Pepper can answer, and looks over at Rhodey. “We kind of already guessed. Uncle Jim’s not really subtle.”

Now it’s Rhodey’s turn to look embarrassed, and he walks over to the couch to join all of them. “I think the real takeaway here is that we can’t leave Pepper unsupervised around kids or she’ll blab all our secrets.”

“Fine, if you’re going to be that way, you don’t get any of the pictures I colored for you.” She picks up the first drawing, the one with Iron Man and War Machine. “This one’s going in the garbage.”

“No, Pepperpot, I want it!” Tony reaches out, making grabby hands, and she sighs and hands it over. He beams and turns to Robin. “And I want one from you too, these are going up on the wall in the workshop.”

Robin happily hands him a picture of race car, and Tony makes a show of looking over it carefully. “It’s beautiful. The best race car I’ve ever received.”

“Don’t lie, Uncle Tony,” Robin chastises him. “Momma says that’s a big no-no.”

“She’s right,” Pepper adds, grinning. “Liars don’t get dessert after lunch.”

“I’m not lying!” Tony protests as everyone gets up to go to the kitchen. “I mean it! It’s great, Robin.”

Robin walks over to him and takes his hand. “Okay, I believe you. Please let him have dessert, Miss Pepper.”

Pepper laughs, falling into step beside Rhodey, who smiles and rests his hand against her back. “All right, he can have dessert,” she concedes. “Now who wants lunch?”

Robin and Lila both raise their hands, and so does Tony. She looks over at Rhodey and he raises his hand as well. The two girls grab Tony and walk with him while Lila tells Robin about all the cool stuff Tony has in the workshop, Pepper and Rhodey walking along behind them.

In the end, Pepper’s still not entirely sold on the concept of children, but Robin and Lila are sweet, and it’s nice to see them so attached to Tony. Maybe they can invite them to visit more often.


End file.
